Andrew Fisher (693) on 3/18/2023 12:04 AM · edited · Reply · Permalink · Report

This was another game I had my eye on back around Xmas 1990 when my choice of games was pretty limited. I still had my DTK PC XT with CGA graphics and Intel 8088 CPU, Roller Coaster Rumbler for DOS was at Computer Village, my hometown computer shop, for about $30. I didn't get it in the end, but it would have run on my PC, albeit slowly, so I like to picture how it would have felt playing it on Xmas Day '90.

I didn't have a mouse back then and any game with gun-sight control really needs a mouse. The PC speaker music and sound effects would have driven everyone crazy, they can be turned off though, also I think all ports of the game came with an audio cassette of proper background music. You have to be sure to read the instructions otherwise you might not realize that you can brake and accelerate as well as shoot, completing even the first track/stage is near impossible unless you brake ahead of obstacles on the track to give you time to destroy them. Predictably there's a time limit to stop you from keeping the brake on all the way, so you'll need to accelerate again (best done on the straight or uphill parts). Your railcar comes to a halt when your "targets shot" gets to 60%, then the stage is complete, there are plenty of targets that aren't obstacles on the track in front of you, even trees on the ground are targets. Actually the game gets quite easy once you learn the controls and I realized there are eight different tracks, then you move on to "Level 2: Stage 1" which I think is the first track again with more obstacles and targets leading me to suspect that the game might just repeat the same eight stages infinitely or at least until your score reaches the six digit maximum of 999999. That's something to possibly discover later. So I'll say that playing up to the end of Level 1: Stage 8 is fun, some of the slopes and twists are pretty exciting, but anything after that is boring and probably not worth playing, not unless there's some sort of ending to look forward to (I'm thinking an ending after Level 3: Stage 8 is a possibility).

It isn't, it's another another game that keeps going and going till you fall asleep or die of boredom. And there's something wrong with scorekeeping, I had mine reset to zero when I was on about 500000, what's more when gave up at Level 4 expecting to enter in a score in the 400000s, the game just went back to the title screen. Not that it matters, the high-scores aren't even saved, but it's just more bugs. The game still might have been worth the money back in 1990, but count going through all eight tracks once as completion and take a screen shot of your score :)

I recorded a playthrough covering stages 1 to 8 at Level 1. https://youtu.be/HjAYLanGx9Q